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Improvement Summary
top-down shooter game (its now more horror focused)
Requested Feedback/Comments for Reviewers
im also sorry that i didnt rate any game last time i had time issues + my pc was broken =(
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Turning this into a horror game could be a really interesting change if you lean into it. Opening voice line seemed random and was too quiet, still don't understand what the story is. Having click to shoot with arrow keys feels awkward. Shoot should either be a button or movement should be AWSD. Hitboxes on the asteroids or ship are way off too, I was getting hit while still a whole ship away from the obstacle on screen. Hitting the back arrow brings ship to an immediate dead stop too which feels jarring with the rest of the ships movements. Finally i like having the ominous messages after dying, it is starting to lean into the horror direction of the game. Feel like you could do more with that. However they should escalate in intensity and creepiness the more you die, First time I played it seemed like it was doing that but on next playthrough it just booted me right away after one loss. If you are leaning into the crashing the game aspect of it you should really jumpscare the hell out of someone to leave a big impression on them. Still think this is an interesting direction to go in, can't wait to see what you do with it.
The Voice in the news report is quiet compared to the staticy sound in the background.
The menu music is substantially louder then the opening audio. Headphone users especially could get a very unpleasant surprise after the opening ends. You need to better balance the audio.
The beginning of the music in the menu screen does not sound good, the beeping sound is unpleasant.
I feel like the help button is un-necessary as it is, it might be better to just have the instructions on the menu at all times.
There were some asteroids that had glitchy sprites, they broke into the largest type of asteroid.
If you die too many times, when you press space it crashes the game, this feels intended, and I do not like it, especially since it gives no indication that it will crash the game.
The buildup of asteroids is much too fast, to start with there is a decent amount, then after a little bit, you are flooded by asteroids.
I would prefer it if you could move your ship with WASD.
The core gameplay is not that fun and engaging for me to want to play, and the cutscenes/story audio don't really change it that much to me. The core gameplay being spamming mouse clicks is not very fun, especially since you need to move with arrow keys.
The collision shape for the ship felt far too big. Regularly I would have a asteroid take me out without touching my ship, they were around a ship's width away from any part of the sprite. Either your ship's sprite should be bigger to match the collision shape, or the collision shape should be smaller to match the sprite.
While I know the static in the audio is meant to fit the time period, it feels a bit louder than needed. I'd reduce it a somewhat so that it still conveys the intended feel, but is less annoying.
After the opening audio plays, the menu music is substantially louder. Headphone users especially could get a very unpleasant surprise after the opening ends. You really need to better balance these so that the audio of the opening can be clearly heard at a volume level that lets the menu music be heard as proper background music and not blasting out way too loud.
Shortly after starting to play I saw some redish/pinkish flickering over some asteroids with Error text about sprites not being found.
Initially things felt similar to before. Then the amount of asteroids got cranked up a lot. I eventually got hit and got a black screen with some text that looked like it was meant to be a computer terminal, with lines starting with "//" and some audio playing. Nothing I did seemed to get any reaction from the game, so I ended up closing the game window manually. You should have something there to let the player return to the menu or restart playing. Having to close the game completely to restart is going to have many players quitting after very few losses.
I tried one more time and got to a score of just over 40,000. My old strategy of just staying in the middle and shooting fast in a circle seems even more appropriate than before, though with more stops in the rotation to clean up areas with larger clusters. As the screen filled it seemed to flood the edges and playing as I did I was able to keep the center clear until overwhelmed by sheer numbers. It feels even more like a clicker game where the only way to succeed is to click really fast. It makes me want to start a program to just generate really fast mouse click events, rather than trying to actually click that much.
I saw your comment about now being "more horror focused". I guess that the new audio clips are meant to be that horror element, and perhaps the missing sprites, but the gameplay is not horror. Sure, adding an opening cutscene/audio and some extra story to set the scene of your game is good and can help even basic gameplay have a bit more meaning for players, but I'd not start promoting it as horror.
The core gameplay needs to be fun and engaging for people to want to play, regardless of any cutscenes/story audio. The need to restart the game after each loss is a real killer for repeat plays. The core gameplay being spamming mouse clicks is also not very engaging to me personally. I also felt like the collision shape for the ship was far too big. The asteroids that took me out did not touch the ship, and were around a ship's width away from any part of the sprite. For a game where you need to avoid colliding with things, an accurate collision shape is essential. Keep working to build up your story, but I would suggest most of the effort should be on improving the gameplay experience, starting with normalizing the volume of the different sounds/music.
tho its meant to be loud i think one of the reasons why the audio was loud happened cuz normaly i used somewhere 4 volume when i created my games tho idk what "//" text ur talking about ;) tho i know the games lore and it is horror focused i left the game as it is cuz at that point i was and still am developing 5 projects at the same time i want to make a remaster where it gets more scary tho at this point i rlly cant
I pulled it up to see if I could get a screenshot of the death text with the "//", and intentionally died quickly. That resulted in a bit of red text showing, that included the option to press space to continue. I tried a few times getting a bit further each time. I did not get the same message as my first time and was able to press space to continue, but did get a crash when pressing space after several deaths. I guess that what happened the first time I played was a bug and the text I saw was from the error. It was likely based on the score or something else about how I played.
tho i remember adding smth i dont remember anymore if its in the game, i mean it could have been anything.
The most recent devlog is 43 days old, and you are still putting a description of the game in place of an improvement summary. Please edit your submission and describe what has been done in the past month as part of the jam. You can write a devlog and link to it, or just give a short summary in the "Improvement Summary" field. It helps to know what to look for when replaying, especially when a lot of the content takes a while to see, or may be random.